Argentina

Molino Cañuelas, one of Argentina's leading food producers, has filed for the local equivalent of Chapter 11 after years of disputes with creditors, the Buenos Aires Times reported. Molca, as the company is known in Argentina, could not reach an agreement with creditor financial institutions, so it was forced to request the opening of bankruptcy proceedings, the firm reported in a statement sent by email via an outsourced public relations firm. The company owes US$1.4 billion to domestic and foreign debtors, including ING Groep NV and Rabobank UA, a spokeswoman confirmed.

Axel Kicillof, the outspoken governor of Buenos Aires, called journalists to one of the province’s opulent 19th-century mansions and conceded defeat. It was early 2020, just weeks before the pandemic hit, and Kicillof, a man reviled in investing circles for his brash negotiating style when he was economy minister during Argentina’s default a decade ago, was once again doing battle with creditors. This time around, he lamented bondholders’ “enormous intransigence” in refusing his province’s request to delay a $250 million bond payment.

Argentina’s Province of Buenos Aires says it received creditor support to restructure 98% of its $7.1 billion in overseas debt, putting it a step closer to ending a 16-month default, Bloomberg News reported. The province, which is Argentina’s largest and most populous, will swap all of the bonds it had offered to exchange except for dollar-denominated notes due 2021 and euro-denominated bonds due 2020, which had been issued under indentures that required a higher amount of creditor participation, according to a statement. The deal is expected to settle Sept. 3.

Argentina’s central bank is making it harder for investors to buy dollars as the already draconian capital controls fail to stop the gap between the official and parallel exchange rates from widening, Bloomberg News reported. Regulators are tightening the screws on operations where investors buy assets in pesos and sell them abroad in dollars to obtain foreign currency. The measures, aimed at money laundering and tax evasion, were announced late Thursday. It’s the latest set of controls to prevent dollars flowing out of Argentina’s crippled economy.

Argentine officials met last week with representatives from the International Monetary Fund in Washington as the government of South America’s second-largest economy seeks to rework its troubled loan program, Bloomberg News reported. Economic Policy Secretary Fernando Morra and Central Bank Economic Research Deputy General Manager German Feldman traveled to the U.S. to hold the in-person meetings with IMF staffers including Argentina mission chief Luis Cubeddu.

This month, Argentina's central bank is issuing money to the General Treasury at the fastest rate so far this year, which could fuel even faster inflation, while helping finance public spending ahead of the legislative elections of November, Bloomberg News reported. The monetary authority led by Miguel Pesce sent between July 1 and 22, 180,000 million pesos (US $ 1,860 million) to the Government, double the amount for the entire month of June and the highest figure since last December.

The court that had declared the bankruptcy of Correo Argentino SA, belonging to the family of ex-Argentine president Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), decided to provisionally suspend proceedings on Wednesday, after the company appealed the measure, the Rio Times reported. The ruling was issued by Commercial Court 6, headed by Judge Marta Cirulli who granted the appeal filed by Correo Argentino SA and and granted "suspensive force" of all proceedings arising from the bankruptcy.

Argentina will make a partial payment to the group of wealthy government creditors known as the Paris Club of an outstanding debt of $2.4 billion, Bloomberg News reported. The club will spare Argentina from default in the understanding that the country can rework a $45 billion credit with the International Monetary Fund. The South American nation has used a 60-day grace period to try to reach an agreement with the group after failing to make the payment by May 31. Argentina’s global bonds due in 2030 pared an intra-day decline to trade at 37.23 cents on the dollar on the news.

The International Monetary Fund privately estimates that a deal allowing Argentina to reschedule payments on $45 billion owed to the lender will be pushed into 2022 as President Alberto Fernandez has little incentive to quickly agree on the basis of a new program, Bloomberg News reported.

Argentine power-plant owner Stoneway Capital Ltd. is discussing borrowing money from the senior bondholders challenging the company’s U.S. bankruptcy filing and pushing to relocate the restructuring to Canada, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Stoneway, seeking to finance its stay in bankruptcy, is discussing potential loan terms with senior bondholders and junior creditors, as well as potential outside lenders, the company’s lead lawyer, Fred Sosnick, said at a virtual hearing on Friday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. The bondholders, including BlackRock Inc.